More Consultation Expected for Integrity Bill

The Working Committee on the Government's proposed Political Parties Integrity Bill is planning to hold a second and final consultation meeting at the end of September.

The working committee is chaired by the Special Secretary to the Prime Minister John Keniapisia, the Chairman of the Law Reform Commission, Frank Kabui, former Speaker of the National Parliament Paul Tovua, and Chris Waiwori of the political unit of the Prime Minister's Office.

The Bill is aimed at introducing some control on Members of Parliaments crossing the floor at their will.

Consultations of the Bill included a visitation to Papua New Guinea last month and a two day workshop for prominent Solomon Islands.

PNG already has an existing law similar to the Political Parties Integrity Bill which was also aimed at addressing political instability within PNG.

Keniapisia stated that his committee is now working to put together a paper regarding the recommendations discussed during the consultations.

He said that the consultation scheduled for the 24th and 25th of this month would be spearheaded by the Australian based Lowi Institute, a research foundation which specializes in Melanesian societies.

Mr. Keniapisia said that it was also the Lowi Institute who provided assistance to the Australian Government when it formulated the newly introduced labour mobility scheme.

He said that the Director of the Lowi Institute, Ms. Jenny Howard would lead a number of resource people from other refutable institutions such as the Australian National University (ANU) and two of the visiting resource people will include two Solomon Islands academics.

One of them is Dr. Tarscius Tara of the Guadalcanal and who teaches at the East West Centre in Hawaii and Dr. Kabini Sanga who is teaching at the Victoria University in New Zealand.

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